Egypt crisis: Does political Islam have a future?

[Jaga]

Pieter,

your stories are so in depth, just like Kaima said, that it is difficult to reply in the same indebt manner without taking lots of time.

The story of this girl who was in Lebanon is definitively PTSD. My family went through the war, but I do not remember them to be so disturbed. even my uncle who was in the army. But I have heard so much that for some time when I was young I had many fears related to the wars and bad dreams.

+++Islam is a great culture and civilization, which brought health care and medicine innovation and progress to the world in the middle ages, contributed to the world in scientific, cultural, architecture, math, astrology, philosophy and theology.+++

yes. I think that Islam is a bit like Mormon religion. Their religious basis are a bit strange for me, but they are great on forming community structure.

[pieter]

Here a Shia call for prayer


Jaga,

The Lebanese student girl endured for some period 24 hours a day and 7 days a week terror of continuing artillery, mortar, rpg (rocket propelled grenades), heavy machine gun fire, pistol fire and sectarian extremism and hatred. In the Lebanese war everybody fought against everybody. Christian milita (the Phalangists, the Lebanese Forces and the Ketab party) agains the Palestinian PLO (Fatah) of Jasser Arafat, Druze, Communists and Shia and Sunni militia, and christians against eachother, the Shia Hezbollah militia agains the Shia Amal militia, Syrian backed radical Palestinian fractions (The Peoples Front For the Liberation of Palestine, PFLP, or the Black September, Abu Nidal, fraction) agains the PLO, and for instance the Shia agains the Palestinians.

The militia terrorized citizens by destroying neighborhoods, block after block, apartment after apartment , house after house. Snipers killed people who just walked over the street to go to do shopping, to school or their work (if that was possible at all), car bombs and suicide bombers also terrorized neighborhoods where these militant radicals targeted opponents or civilians. It was comparable to Syria today, and we know from the media reports today what that means. Next to that she lost familymembers, relatives, friends, other kids from highschool who were killed or badly wounded. Adults felt helpless, because they could't protect their children, nieces and nephews. Her family had to leave her country to have a normal life and she went to Amsterdam to study at the university there. I don't remember if she was a christian Lebanese or Muslim. What I do remember was that she was very Western and didn't wear a headgear or niqab. She took part in the student home parties in her student home, where my girlfriend lived. During the day and in conversations she was a relatively quiet and pleasent person, very modest and sophisticated. Only at night she screamed and cried and I know that my two friends who lived in that house (my girlfriend and another female friend of mine) told me that that was due to the Lebanese civil war. She probably will never lose that memories and mental scars. Her city and country were destroyed due to that civil war.







I can't compare Islam with the Mormon religion, because I don't know the Mormon faith enough. I only know that Islam is about 1400 years old and the Mormon faith maybe 150 years old. The Mormon faith is an offspring of the Christian faith and Islam is rooted in the Arab Peninsula, and influenced by Judaism and Christianity, but an Arab faith found by an Arab prophet who came after Abraham (Ibrahim), Moses and Jesus Christ, who are seen by Muslims as prophets too. Their religious basis are a bit strange for me too, because I can't find a root, fundament or understanding of their faith, which makes a connection with me personally.

Cheers,
Pieter